Art Or Nature?

The planting season is motoring on and we have just about finished laying out the cut flower border, as you can see from the forest of canes. So far we have sunflowers, pyrethrum, helychrisums, chrysanthemums and dahlias, it will be a riot of colour come the later seasons with plenty of blooms with which to adorn all our homes. I'm all for flowers in the house but must confess to a liking for the more wild examples, I can admire the beauty in these well bred creatures but find them slightly stuffy and old fashioned. My admiration goes to Nature who can place her finest blooms in such casual beauty it takes my breath away, as in this grouping of foxgloves below. However I'm not really being fair so I will photograph this border again to show you later in the season. By mid morning we had turned our attention to the iris border, we must divide and re-plant them again this year to keep them looking magnificent, so yesterday we had to mark all the blooms for identification when the colours have faded. Traditionally this job is always done when the weather is wet and this occasion was no exception.

It is surprising how much water an iris bloom will hold, and how much dye they drip down onto your hands when you handle them like this. The end result looks like some kind of crazy homage to the Tour de Yorkshire!

"In all things of nature there is something of the marvellous"
Aristotle